Amelia Chan

violinist | Creator, First Principles Violin

Amelia Chan is currently concertmaster of the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong (CCOHK).

She came to this position from her tenure as concertmaster of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra (US). An experienced leader, Amelia has served in the concertmaster chair under acclaimed conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Michael Tilson Thomas, Manfred Huss, Sergiu Commissiona, Anton Coppola, Zdeněk Mácal, Jorge Mester, Julius Rudel, and Gerard Schwarz. She has also performed with the New York Philharmonic extensively. As a chamber musician, Amelia has served as first violinist of the Montclaire String Quartet, and has collaborated with guitarist Sharon Isbin, accordionist Richard Galliano, violinist Lara St. John, the Ying Quartet, members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players (NYC), among others. She has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the West Virginia Symphony, the International Virtuosi Orchestra on tour in Central America, the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra (NYC), the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra (NYC), and the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong. She has shared the stage as co-soloist with acclaimed flutist Sir James Galway, and frequently acts as director for the City Chamber Orchestra. She has performed at the Costa Rica Music Festival, the Guatemala Music Festival, Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival in New York and the Pacific Music Festival (Japan).

Amelia has been heard on WQXR, New York; WQED, Pittsburgh; West Virginia Public Broadcasting; BBC Radio Scotland, Scotland; and RTHK Radio 4, Hong Kong.

As an educator, Amelia approaches the teaching of technique through the lens of whole-body biomechanics, and on the principle that techniques of playing an instrument need to be relational to the body, and to how it moves, instead of relying on a static one-size-fits-all method. She believes in a focused and deep education that goes beyond rote training, where the student learns discernment and critical thinking, while sifting through the layers of intellect needed to decipher the depths of the musical art, to get to the natural, joyful simplicity of music-making.

Amelia holds undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees from the Mannes College of Music and Manhattan School of Music (NY). She began her violin studies in the junior school at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Her major teachers included Thomas Wang, Alice Waten, Albert Markov, Shirley Givens, Lisa Kim, Yoko Takebe, Sheryl Staples, Glenn Dicterow, and double-bassist Julius Levine.

For more information on Amelia, please go to her Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/ameliachanviolin/ 

——————————————————————————-

"Concertmaster Amelia Chan in particular played with passion, acting as the vibrant soul of the ensemble.” South China Morning Post 

“…gutsy solo violin throughout [by] concertmaster Amelia Chan…” theprickle.org

Bow Grip Versus Sword Hold

May 18, 2026  /  Amelia Chan

There are many different opinions about how to hold the bow. Some say it’s not even a “hold,” and most certainly not a “grip,” but simply “balancing.” To get past the semantics and down to the first principles of what this means, imagine play-fighting with a toy sword. What makes it possible for you to swing the sword with control, power, and speed?

If you try gripping your bow like a sword, you’ll immediately feel how you are using what biomechanics calls a power grip. You rely on the bigger structures of your body—your upper arm, your core, and even your legs if you need to swing the sword across your body. In a power grip, the muscles inside the arches of your hand work together to create a more block-like shape to transfer that larger force into the object.

But holding a bow requires what is called a dynamic precision grip. The movements are a lot finer, which means there is way more involvement from the smaller joints and muscles of the fingers. Unlike the more unified grip of a sword, the arches of your hand must remain open and supple. The muscles supporting those arches have to work highly independently of one another—shifting, absorbing shock, and making tiny, highly differentiated micro-adjustments to control the bow.

Yet, even with these fine movements, your fingers still need enough power for any control to happen. This is where semantics and perception can cause confusion in teaching. What I call a "grip" or a "light hold" might feel entirely different to you. In biomechanics, this comes down to perceived exertion. If someone has very strong hands, holding the bow might feel completely effortless. To someone with weaker hands, achieving that exact same hold will feel like a much tighter, more effortful "grip." This is why verbal instructions often leave gaps in understanding.

Once you switch from a sword grip to a proper bow hold, you need to organize your entire arm to use the best of both worlds. This comes down to creating efficient leverage. By carefully positioning your proximal structures—such as organizing your upper arm and adjusting how much the shoulder joint is rotated—you create a mechanical advantage that effortlessly delivers weight and power. At the same time, your distal joints (your forearm, hand, and fingers) provide fine, flexible control. You can think of it as a hybrid concept: You can think of it as a hybrid concept: a combination of holding a sword and, to use a common analogy, holding a paintbrush. Your upper arm works with the leverage and power of a sword, while your forearm and fingers must manipulate the bow as if handling a heavy, leaden paintbrush. The upper arm provides the driving force, but your fingers must work actively against that weight to paint very fine details on the canvas.

It is so helpful to try to get a thorough feel-sense of the very root of any movement we need to play the instrument. This allows us to integrate a scientific understanding of biomechanics and anatomy with our body’s organic feel-sense, ultimately allowing these complex movements to become deeply ingrained and second nature.

Comment